GROVE CITY, Pa. – The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College will host a two-day conference on “Church & State: A History of Church-State Relations and a Look at Where Values Voters Will Turn in 2008” on April 10-11 on the Grove City College campus. Registration is required.

The conference will examine how the church impacts government and how voters choose based on their values. The annual conference sponsored by The Center for Vision & Values, the campus think tank, will feature numerous scholars and commentators, including keynote speakers Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, also known as the Beltway Boys on the FOX News Channel, and “TIME” magazine’s Michael Duffy.

Barnes and Kondracke will present the first keynote address at 7 p.m. April 10 in the Crawford Hall Auditorium. Their talk is titled “From the Right and the Left: The Beltway Boys Square Off on Faith in the Public Square.” The two can be seen weekly on “The Beltway Boys” program on the FOX News Channel at 6 and 11:30 p.m. on Saturdays and at 6:30 a.m. on Sundays.

Barnes joined the FOX team in 1996 as a political contributor. Besides co-hosting the “The Beltway Boys,” he is a regular contributor to “Special Report with Brit Hume,” the No. 1 weeknight political program on cable. After 10 years as senior editor and White House correspondent for “The New Republic,” Barnes founded “The Weekly Standard” with William Kristol and John Podhoretz. Today he serves as its executive editor. In addition, Barnes hosts two weekly radio shows, “Issues in the News” on Voice of America and “What’s the Story.” He also appears as chief correspondent on the PBS Series, “National Desk.” For more than a decade, Barnes was a regular panelist on “The McLaughlin Group” public affairs television program, seen on over 350 stations nationwide.

Over the years, he has written for “Reader’s Digest,” “The New York Times,” “The Wall Street Journal,” “The Spectator,” “Washingtonian,” “The Public Interest,” “Policy Review” and both “The Sunday Telegraph” and “The Sunday Times” of London. Barnes is a graduate of the University of Virginia and was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.

Kondracke, a 37-year veteran journalist, also joined the FOX team in 1996 as “The Beltway Boys” co-host with Barnes. He is also a regular contributor on “Special Report with Brit Hume.” Kondrake served 16 years as a regular panelist on the “The McLaughlin Group” and, before becoming the executive editor and columnist of “Roll Call,” he served as executive editor and senior editor of “The New Republic” from 1977-91.

He was the Washington bureau chief of “Newsweek,” a regular panelist on “This Week with David Brinkley” and a columnist for “The Wall Street Journal.” In addition, Kondracke received the Washington Post’s “Crystal Ball Award” in 1994.

Kondracke chronicled his wife Milly’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease in his 2001 book titled “Saving Milly.” Dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease, he is a member of both the Parkinson’s Action Network and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

The second keynote address, “Billy Graham in the White House,” will be presented by “TIME” magazine’s Michael Duffy at 7 p.m. April 11 in the Sticht Lecture Hall of the Hall of Arts and Letters. Duffy is “TIME’s” assistant managing editor and co-author of “The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House.”

Duffy, also “TIME’s” Washington Bureau Chief, has been at the center of the magazine’s coverage of politics and presidents for 18 years. Since 1997, he has overseen 20 correspondents, the magazine’s largest news gathering operation. He is the co-author, with assistant managing editor Dan Goodgame, of “Marching In Place: The Status Quo Presidency of George Bush,” published in 1992 by Simon & Schuster. He has appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and is a regular guest on CNN and PBS’s “Washington Week in Review.”

Duffy joined “TIME” in 1985 as a Pentagon correspondent and was assigned to cover Congress a year later. Duffy spent six years covering both the Bush and Clinton White House and in 1995 won the Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.

The cost for the conference is $25 per day, plus $50 per day for lunch and dinner. The total cost for the two-day event with all meals is $150. Those interested in registering can log on to the conference’s web site at www.grovecityconference.com/church_and_state or contact Brenda Vinton at (724) 450-1541 or blvinton@gcc.edu.

The Church & State conference schedule follows. All lectures will be in Sticht Lecture Hall of the Hall of Arts and Letters unless otherwise noted.

Thursday, April 10

10 a.m. Opening remarks by Grove City College President Richard G. Jewell ’67 and Executive Director of the Center for Vision & Values Paul Kengor

10:25 a.m. “Church & State and Thomas Jefferson” by Grove City College professor Dr. Gary Smith ’72

11:30 a.m. Lunch in Mary Anderson Pew Dining Hall (for registered attendees only)
“Faith and the White House: Should Americans Open Their Minds to an Atheist President?” by Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio personality and host of the “Michael Medved Show”

1 p.m. Q&A with Naomi Schaefer Riley, a “Wall Street Journal” editor and author of “God on the Quad”

2:30 p.m. Simultaneous Panels
Panel Discussion 1: “Mere Creatures: Church, State & Schools” with Grove City College professors Drs. Jason Edwards, Steven Jones and Michael Coulter ’91, Sticht Lecture Hall, Hall of Arts and Letters
Panel Discussion 2: “Sacred Ground: Church, State & Church Property” with professors Dr. John Sparks ’66 and Dr. Samuel Stanton, Recital Hall, Pew Fine Arts Center

5:30 p.m. Dinner in Mary Anderson Pew Dining Hall (for registered attendees only)
“Kennedy v. Nixon: Church, State & the 1960 Presidential Election” by Grove City College President Richard G. Jewell ’67

7 p.m. Conference Keynote Address: “From the Right and the Left: The Beltway Boys Square Off on Faith in the Public Square” by FOX News Channel’s Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke

Friday, April 11

9 a.m. “Red God, Blue God: Is There a God Gap Between the Parties?” by Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

10 a.m. Simultaneous Panel and Lecture
Panel Discussion: “Church & State in the 19th Century” with Grove City College professors Dr. Gillis Harp and Dr. Paul Kemeny, Sticht Lecture Hall, Hall of Arts and Letters
Lecture: “Religious Freedom and the First Amendment” by Bradley Tupi of the firm Tucker Arensberg, Recital Hall, Pew Fine Arts Center

11:30 a.m. Lunch in Mary Anderson Pew Dining Hall (for registered attendees only)
“The Case for Christian America” by Don Feder, columnist and author of “A Jewish Conservative Looks at Pagan America”

1 p.m. “The Religious Case for Separating Church and State” by Grove City College professor Dr. T. David Gordon

2 p.m. “America’s Magna Carta for Religious Liberty: Jefferson, Madison and the Virginia Statues for Religious Freedom” by Bob Morrison, director of the Family Research Council’s Witherspoon Fellowship.

3 p.m. Simultaneous Lectures
Lecture 1: “What Does the Bible Say? The Scriptural Case for Private Property and a Free Economy” by Grove City College professor Dr. Shawn Ritenour, Sticht Lecture Hall, Hall of Arts and Letters
Lecture 2: “Lambs to the Slaughter: The Religious Left and War” by Grove City College professor Dr. Earl Tilford, Recital Hall, Pew Fine Arts Center

5:30 p.m. Dinner in Mary Anderson Pew Dining Hall (for registered attendees only)
“Two Figures, Two Faiths: God and George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton” by The Center for Vision & Values Executive Director Paul Kengor

7 p.m. Conference Keynote Address: “Billy Graham in the White House” by “TIME’s” Michael Duffy

8 p.m. Closing Remarks